The present invention relates to vehicle arresting devices, such as may be deployed by law enforcement agencies to safely stop the progress of a suspect vehicle for example if stolen or engaged in other criminal activity.
Vehicle pursuit is one of the most common high-risk areas of law enforcement and many people are killed each year as a result of high speed chases. An alternative method for stopping, or attempting to stop, a fleeing vehicle which is quite widely practiced is to deploy on the roadway ahead of the vehicle a device intended to puncture its tires. A common form of this type of device comprises a lightweight plastics latticework which is laid across the road and carries a number of tubular spikes. When the target vehicle passes over the device some of the spikes penetrate its tires and are carried along with the vehicle enabling deflation of the respective tire(s) through their hollow construction. While tire deflation significantly retards a vehicle and makes it difficult to control, devices of this kind do not necessarily result in the vehicle being stopped, or may do so only after the suspect has been able to continue driving “on the rims” for a considerable distance further.
Another form of device intended for more positive arresting of the progress of a vehicle is proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,220,781. This device comprises a panel of lightweight material, such as silk, to be laid on the roadway and having a tactile surface at its leading edge formed from barbed pins and/or adhesive blisters. A split seam extends through the panel from the centre of its leading edge to approximately three-quarters of its length (in the fore and aft direction) and a reinforcement sash of Kevlar® or similar material is affixed to the panel and extends in a partial loop around the split. The intention is that when a vehicle encounters this device its leading edge will adhere to the front wheels so that the panel will wrap around the wheels until, when the limit of the split seam is reached, the reinforcement sash is drawn tight under the vehicle thereby preventing further rotation of the wheels. It is essential to this operation, however, that the vehicle encounters the device with its front wheels disposed either side of the split seam, and important that they run directly over the relatively narrow reinforcement sash in order to ensure that the latter becomes wrapped around the wheels. In other words the operation is sensitive to the correct lateral positioning of the vehicle relative to the device, and it is likely to be successful only where the vehicle can be constrained to pass through a relatively narrow gap where the device is deployed.